Editor’s note: ISU students interested in sharing their experiences abroad with Daily readers can make inquiries via letters@ www. daily. iastate.edu with “Study Abroad” as the subject.

MADRID, Spain — A pale haze weaves through the downtown streets of Madrid at rush hour Wednesday night. A man on the corner of Gran Via and Callao stands with a flamenco guitar strapped to his back, carrying a stack of pamphlets. He shuffles up and down the corner distributing the information to passersby. A red ribbon tied around the sleeve of his black leather jacket symbolizes his movement.

He is only one in a group of 200 involved in the protest. The youthful group marches in the street waving black flags marked with anarchy symbols — chanting. Leading the entourage are five men carrying a 6-foot white banner stamped in red “Lucha por tu libertad contra la represion!” Fight for your liberty against the repression!

The police march along both sides armed with handguns and billy clubs, riot gear at the ready. Police vans escort the protesters front and back.

As the energy intensifies, a fight breaks out between a protester and five officers.

The altercation causes the angry crowd to commence accusing the police of being murderers: “La Policia, Asesina.” The mood calms and the rally climaxes in a distorted speech delivered through a megaphone by the female leader of the group at the Puerta de Sol.

These were the events that occurred at an Anarchist protest I stumbled upon in downtown Madrid on March 10. And what a refreshing dose of political activism it was.

Political protests are not very commonplace in Iowa. As a conservative state, it seems Iowans are happy with things as they are, and to change them would be sacrilege. Since everything is peachy keen in Iowa, who cares about injustice in other parts of the world, or the United States for that matter?

It is beyond me how a campus teeming with young, educated people with a thirst for knowledge can be so jam-packed with conservatives.

As a liberal at Iowa State, I am definitely in the minority. To tell the truth, I didn’t even know I was liberal until I left Chicago and came to Ames. As soon as I hit campus freshman year, questions began to boil up in my mind.

Why is it anyone who dresses differently on this campus is constantly stared at or mocked?

Why are homosexuals at ISU so frequently referred to as “faggots?” How can people say they are pro-life but in favor of the death penalty?

These are questions for which I have yet to find answers. Who knows if I ever will. What I do know is that progress in life cannot be made unless we fight for what we believe in.

With a few exceptions, student activism on our campus has been dead. The September 29th Movement has kept quiet recently, and no one new has stepped up to the plate. The LGBTAA has worked hard to destroy homophobic stereotypes, but aside from that, activism has been left in the dark at ISU.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Michigan, students have recently protested against sweatshop labor used for the production of university apparel.

In Europe, Kurdish exiles went as far as setting themselves on fire last month to protest the capture of their leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Why do we have to be so accepting of the way things are?

American corporations are thriving because they are paying 7-year-olds in third world countries four cents a day to manufacture products they can sell overpriced.

The United States is the leader of the free world, yet our government kills nearly 100 of its own citizens every year through capital punishment.

In Wyoming, an innocent college student is dragged off, tied up against a fence and beaten to death because he is gay.

Such a wonderful world we live in, isn’t it?

There are always things that can be improved by change.

Our generation does not have to conform to the Generation X apathetic stereotype the establishment has placed on us. Whatever your political views are (liberal or conservative), stand up for those views.

Fight for freedom, equality and diversity. Take a stand against intolerance, injustice, racism and homophobia. Exercise your freedom of speech.

While we at Iowa State passively sit in apathy at the sidelines of the ongoing political battle, a small group of youth in Europe is standing up for what they believe in.

“Mejor morir luchando que vivir esclavizado,” they say.

It’s better to die fighting than to live enslaved.

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Conor Bezane is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Chicago. He does not condone anarchy, fascism or lighting oneself on fire — just freedom of expression.